Silent Victory USS Narwhal War Patrol 1

 

Hello and welcome to the first War Patrol of the USS Narwhal (SS-167), a brand new submarine that is a new class of submarines based upon a modified Tambor class submarine. We've been playing the War Patrols of the USS Tambor but I've stopped those missions for now since they survived to 1943 and I'm planning on playing each submarine one year at a time so today we begin the USS Narwhal.

USS Narwhal (SS-167)

In real life, the USS Narwhal was commanded by Lieutenant Commander John H. Brown Jr. In our game the USS Narwhal will be based out of Pearl Harbor, just like in real life.

Here's a picture of the USS Narwhal during the Pearl Harbor attack, the submarine survived the attack and was able to start War Patrols against the Japanese.

Once the Narwhal has been outfitted with food and weapons the sub leaves Pearl Harbor for their first War Patrol through the Marshall Islands. 

The patrol starts off slow with no contact with any planes as the Narwhal transits from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Islands. Midway through the patrol, the lookouts spot a convoy on the horizon.

Convoy

The captain decides to submerge and tail the convoy until the sunsets. Once the sky is dark the Narwhal surfaces and begins to line up shots on the closest three ships of the convoy. The three ships are a small 1300 ton freighter named the Seinan Maru, a large 5200-ton freighter named the Kimishima Maru, and a large 8500-ton troop transport named the Mizuho Maru. 

Lt Commander Brown decides to fire three fore torpedoes each at the large freighter and troop transport before turning the sub around and firing four aft torpedoes, two at the small freighter and one torpedo each at the large ships. 

When the shots are lined up the Captain fires his torpedoes. The first six torpedoes all hit doing considerable damage to the targets. The captain swings the sub around and fires the four aft torpedoes. The two fired at the small freighter hit and sink it while the lone torpedoes fired at each large ship miss.

The Narwhal is equipped with twenty Mark 14 steam torpedoes that are notorious for not working, and I've definitely had that experience in other games. Surprisingly all torpedoes that hit their targets go off and the Narwhal sinks all three ships for a total of 15,000 tons of war material and soldiers going to the bottom of the Pacific. The captain sees the escorts coming to the area to investigate the attack and Lt Commander Brown orders the sub to submerge. The Narwahl is able to sneak away from the area without being located by the escorts to end their first successful attack of the war.

The Narwhal continues on its patrol but unfortunately for all the boat encounters nothing else during the rest of the patrol and makes its way back to its base at Pearl Harbor.

The USS Narwhal's first War Patrol ends with success. They sunk three enemy ships for a total of 15,000 tons sunk. 

Seinan Maru 1,300 Ton Small Freighter

Kimishima Maru 5,200 Ton Large Feighter

Mizuho Maru 8,500 Ton Passenger Ship

The USS Narwhal is awarded the Submarine Combat Patrol Insignia and its first Battle Star while Leautennat Commander John Brown Jr has been awarded a Bronze Star for his efforts on the War Patrol.

The captain and crew of the Narwhal are happy with their performance but would definitely be happier if they came back with zero torpedoes instead of ten. After a short refit of supplies, the Narwhal has been ordered to patrol through the heart of the Empire of Japan. The sub will begin its next patrol in March 1942 so come back next time to see how the USS Narwahl and crew handle themselves.